Philippe Parreno and the Exhibition as a Multimodal Aesthetic Experience

Art Style | Art & Culture International Magazine

Abstract

A mode is how something is. Modality is the possibility of an object, person or event to be in a certain way. Multimodality is the possibility of being many things at the same time. Perception is not a passive reception of stimuli, but an enactive, embodied and embedded action. Through perceptual action, actors create the presence and absence of their lifeworld. Perception functions in a multisensory way and with all senses simultaneously. This advantage is that information from different sensory channels about the same object or event can be better integrated. The event or object can therefore be identified more quickly and reliably. The information from individual sensory channels is synchronously integrated in different brain areas. In multisensory integration, the brain has to fulfil two tasks simultaneously. It must bring together the different sensory informations that come from the same object or event and it must separate and distinguish the informations that come from other objects or events. Using the example of two extensive exhibition installations by the French artist Philippe Parreno, it will be shown how the multimodality of perception and action can be transferred to algorithmic or biological machines that are able both to register and process sensory inputs and to carry out motor controls in the objects of the exhibition. In this context, Philippe Parreno has developed a new form of choreographed exhibition. In it, individual artworks are no longer lined up next to each other. His exhibitions function as hyperobjects. They are controlled by various multimodal sensory inputs, algorithmic intelligences or biological organisms and its motor output. They trigger the behaviour of the exhibition objects, make certain forms appear temporarily and make others disappear again. His art is an example of how not only the aesthetic experience of the exhibition visitors functions multisensory, but also how the choreography of the exhibition functions multimodally.